Grey Bees

Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk

• Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781646051670
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Europäische Literatur

2022 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER FOR TRANSLATED FICTION

With a warm yet political humor, Ukraine's most famous novelist presents a balanced and illuminating portrait of modern conflict.

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers and Crimean Tatars. Wherever he goes, Sergeyich's childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets. But could these qualities be manipulated to serve an unworthy cause, spelling disaster for him, his bees and his country?

1

Sergey Sergeyich was roused by the cold air at about three in the morning. The potbelly stove he had cobbled together in imitation of a picture in Cosy Cottage magazine, with its little glass door and two burners, had ceased to give off any warmth. The two tin buckets that stood by its side were empty. He lowered his hand into the nearest of them and his fingers found only coal dust.

“Alright,” he groaned sleepily, put on his trousers, slid his feet into the slippers he had fashioned out of an old pair of felt boots, pulled on his sheepskin coat, took both buckets and went into the yard.

He stopped behind the shed in front of a pile of coal and his eyes landed on the shovel – it was much brighter out here than inside. Lumps of coal poured down, thumping against the bottoms of the buckets. Soon the echoing thumps died away, and the rest of the lumps fell in silence.

Somewhere far off a cannon sounded. Half a minute later there was another blast, which seemed to come from the opposite direction.

“Fools can’t get to sleep,” Sergeyich said to himself. “Probably just warming their hands.”

Then he returned to the dark interior of the house and lit a candle. Its warm, pleasant, honeyed scent hit his nose, and his ears were soothed by the familiar quiet ticking of the alarm clock on the narrow wooden windowsill.

There was still a hint of heat inside the stove’s belly, but not enough to get the frosty coal going without the help of woodchips and paper. Eventually, when the long bluish tongues of flame began to lick at the smoke-stained glass, the master of the house stepped out into the yard again. The sound of distant bombardment, almost inaudible inside the house, now reached Sergeyich’s ears from the east. But soon another sound drew his attention. He heard a car driving nearby. Then it stopped. There were only two proper streets in the village – one named after Lenin, the other after Taras Shevchenko – and also Ivan Michurin Lane.¹ Sergeyich himself lived on Lenin, in less than proud isolation. This meant that the car had been driving down Shevchenko. There, too, only one person was left – Pashka Khmelenko, who, like Sergeyich, had retired early. The two men were almost exactly the same age and had been enemies from their first days at school. Pashka’s garden looked out towards Horlivka, so he was one street closer to Donetsk than Sergeyich. Sergeyich’s garden faced in the other direction, towards Sloviansk; it sloped down to a field, which first dipped then rose up towards Zhdanivka. You couldn’t actually see Zhdanivka from the garden – it lay hidden behind a hump. But you could sometimes hear the Ukrainian army, which had burrowed dugouts and trenches into that hump. And even when he couldn’t hear the army, Sergeyich was always aware of its presence. It sat in its dugouts and trenches, to the left of the forest plantation and the dirt road along which tractors and lorries used to drive.

The army had been there for three years now, while the local lads, together with the Russian military, had been drinking tea and vodka in their dugouts beyond Pashka’s street and its gardens, beyond the remnants of the apricot grove that had been planted back in Soviet times, and beyond another field that the war had stripped of its workers, as it had the field that lay between Sergeyich’s garden and Zhdanivka.

The village had been quiet for two whole weeks. Not a shot fired. Had they tired themselves out? Were they conserving their shells and bullets? Or maybe they were reluctant to disturb the last two residents of Little Starhorodivka, who were clinging to their homesteads more tenaciously than a dog clings to its favourite bone. Everyone else in Little Starhorodivka had wanted to leave when the fighting began. And so they left – because they feared for their lives more than they feared for their property, and that stronger fear had won out. But the war hadn’t made Sergeyich fear for his life. It had only made him confused, and indifferent to everything around him. It was as if he had lost all feeling, all his senses, except for one: his sense of responsibility. And this sense, which could make him worry terribly at any hour of the day, was focused entirely on one object: his bees. But now the bees were wintering. Their hives were lined on the inside with felt and covered with sheets of metal. Although they were in the shed, a dumb stray shell could fly in from either side. Its shrapnel would cut into the metal – but then maybe it wouldn’t have the strength to punch through the wooden walls and be the death of the bees?

2

Pashka showed up at Sergeyich’s at noon. The master of the house had just emptied the second bucket of coal into the stove and put the kettle on. His plan had been to have some tea alone.

Before letting his uninvited guest into the house, Sergeyich placed a broom in front of the “safety” axe by the door. You never know – Pashka might have a pistol or a Kalashnikov for self-defence. He’d see the axe and break out that grin of his, as if to say that Sergeyich was a fool. But the axe was all Sergeyich had to protect himself. Nothing else. He kept it under his bed at night, which is why he sometimes managed to sleep so calmly and deeply. Not always, of course.

Sergeyich opened the door for Pashka and gave a not very friendly grunt. This grunt was spurred by Sergeyich’s resentment of his neighbour from Shevchenko Street. It seemed the statute of limitations on his resentment would never run out. The very sight of him reminded Sergeyich of all the mean tricks Pashka used to play, of how he used to fight dirty and tattle to their teachers, of how he never let Sergeyich crib from him during exams. You might think that after forty years Sergeyich would have learned to forgive and forget. Forgive? Maybe. But how could he forget? There were seven girls in their class and only two boys – himself and Pashka – and that meant Sergeyich had never had a friend in school, only an enemy. “Enemy” was too harsh a word, of course. In Ukrainian one could say “vrazhenyatko” – what you might call a “frenemy”. That was more like it. Pashka was a harmless little enemy, the kind no-one fears.

“How goes it, Greyich?” Pashka greeted Sergeyich, a little tensely. “You know they turned on the electricity last night,” he said, casting a glance at the broom to see whether he might use it to brush the snow off his boots.

He picked up the broom, saw the axe, and his lips twisted into that grin of his.

“Liar,” Sergeyich said peaceably. “If they had, I would’ve woken up. I keep all my lights switched on, so I can’t miss it.”

“You probably slept right through it – hell, you could sleep through a direct hit. And they only turned it on for half an hour. Look,” he held out his mobile. “It’s fully charged! You wanna call someone?”

“Got no-one to call,” Sergeyich said. “Want some tea?”

“Where’d you get tea from?”

“From the Protestants.”

“I’ll be damned,” Pashka said. “Mine’s long gone.”

They sat down at Sergeyich’s little table. Pashka’s back was to the stove and its tall metal pipe, which was now radiating warmth. “Why’s the tea so weak?” the guest grumbled. And then, in a more affable voice: “Got anything to eat?” Anger showed in Sergeyich’s eyes.

“They don’t bring me humanitarian aid at night …”

“Me neither.”

“So what do they bring you, then?”

“Nothing!”

Sergeyich grunted and sipped his tea. “So no-one came to see you last night?”

“You saw … ?”

“I did. Went out to get coal.”

“Ah. Well, what you saw were our boys,” Pashka nodded. “On reconnaissance.”

“So what were they reconnoitring for?”

“For dirty Ukes …”

“That so?” Sergeyich stared directly into Pashka’s shifty eyes. Pashka gave up right away.

“I lied,” he confessed. “Just some guys – said they were from Horlivka. Offered me an Audi for three hundred bucks. No papers.”

Sergeyich grinned. “D’you buy it?”

“Whaddaya take me for? A moron?” Pashka shook his head. “Think I don’t know how this stuff goes down? I turn round to get the money and they stick a knife in my back.”

“So why didn’t they come to my place?”

“I told them I was the only one left. Besides, you can’t drive from Lenin to Shevchenko anymore. There’s that big crater where the shell landed.”

Sergeyich just stared at Pashka’s devious countenance, which would have suited an aged pickpocket – one who had grown fearful and jumpy after countless arrests and beatings. At forty-nine he looked a full ten years older than Sergeyich. Was it his earthy complexion? His ragged cheeks? It was as if he’d been shaving with a dull razor all his life. Sergeyich stared at him and thought that if they hadn’t wound up alone in the village he would never have talked to him again. They would have gone on living their parallel lives on their parallel streets and would not have exchanged a word – if it hadn’t been for the war.

“Been a long time since I heard any shooting,” the guest said with a sigh. “But around Hatne, you know, they used to fire the big guns only at night – well, now they’re firing in the daytime too. Listen,” Pashka tilted his head forwards a bit, “if our boys ask you to do something – will you do it?”

“Who are ‘our boys’?” Sergeyich said irritably.

“Stop playing the fool. Our boys – in Donetsk.”

“My boys are in my shed. I don’t have any others. You’re not exactly ‘mine’, either.”

“Oh, cut it out. What’s the matter with you, didn’t get enough sleep?” Pashka twisted his lips. “Or did your bees freeze their stingers off, so now you’re taking it out on me?”

“You shut your mouth about my bees …”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing but respect for the little buggers – I’m just worried! I just can’t understand how they survive the winter. Don’t they get cold in the shed? I’d croak after one night.”

“As long as the shed’s in one piece, they’re fine,” Sergeyich said, his tone softening. “I keep an eye on them, check on them every day.”

“Tell me, how do they sleep in those hives?” Pashka said. “Like people?”

“Just like people. Each bee in its own little bed.”

“But you’re not heating the shed, are you?”

“They don’t need it. Inside the hives, it’s thirty-seven degrees. They keep themselves warm.”

Once the conversation shifted in an apian direction, it grew more amicable. Pashka felt he should leave while the going was good. This way, they might even manage to bid each other farewell, unlike last time, when Sergeyich sent him packing with a few choice words. But then Pashka thought of one more question.

“Have you thought at all about your pension?”

“What’s there to think about?” Sergeyich shrugged. “When the war ends, the postwoman will bring me three years’ worth of cheques. That’ll be the life.”

Pashka grinned. He wanted to needle his host, but managed to restrain himself.

Before he took his leave, his eyes met Sergeyich’s one more time. “Listen, while it’s charged …” He held out his mobile again. “Maybe you ought to give your Vitalina a call?”

“‘My’ Vitalina? She hasn’t been ‘mine’ for six years. No.”

“What about your daughter?”

“Just go. I told you, I’ve got no-one to call.”

3

“What could that be?” Sergeyich wondered aloud.

He was standing on the edge of his garden, facing the white field that sloped down like a smooth, wide tongue and then, just as gradually, rose up towards Zhdanivka. There, on the snowy horizon, lay the hidden fortifications of the Ukrainian troops. Sergeyich could not see them from where he stood. They were far away, and, in any case, his eyesight left much to be desired. To the right of him, sloping gently upwards in the same direction, ran a sometimes-thick, sometimes-sparse windbreak of trees. Actually, the windbreak began to rise only at the turn towards Zhdanivka. Up to that point, the trees were planted in a straight line along the dirt road, which was now blanketed with snow, seeing as no-one had driven down it since the start of the conflict. Before the spring of 2014, you could take that road all the way to Svitle or Kalynivka. It was usually Sergeyich’s feet, not his thoughts, that would bring him out to the edge of the garden. He would often wander through the yard, surveying his property. First he would peek into the shed, to check on the bees, then into the ramshackle garage, to check on his old green Lada estate. Then he would walk over to his heap of long-flame coal, which grew smaller every night but still gave him confidence in a heated tomorrow and day after tomorrow. Sometimes his feet might bring him to the orchard, and then he would pause by the hibernating apple and apricot trees. And sometimes, though less often, he would find himself on the very edge of the garden, with the snow’s endless crust crunching and crumbling beneath his feet. Here, his boots never sank very deep, because the winter wind always blew the snow down into the field, towards the dip and the turn in the road. There was never much snow left on the higher ground – as here in Sergeyich’s garden, for instance.

It was almost noon, high time to head back to the house, but that spot on the field, on the rising slope towards Zhdanivka and the Ukrainian trenches, puzzled Sergeyich and would not let him go. A couple of days earlier, the last time he’d gone out to the edge of the garden, the snow-white field had been spotless. There had been nothing but snow, and if you looked at it long enough, you would begin to hear white noise – a kind of silence that takes hold of your sou...